The Hindu Business Line : TN against Centre’s sugarcane fair price

Chennai, Nov. 8 The Tamil Nadu Government does not support the Fair and Remunerative Pricing (FRP) for sugarcane, according to an official press release.

The Agriculture Minister, Mr Veerapandi S. Arumugam, said in the release that the State Government has not accepted the FRP announced for the season but has come out with its own State Advised Price (SAP) for sugarcane for 2009-10 even prior to the announcement of the FRP.

This means that Tamil Nadu does not accept the Centre’s decision on FRP and would express its opinion to the Centre.

The Union Government had come out with an Ordinance on October 21 announcing a new pricing system, FRP, for sugarcane. It set the sugarcane FRP at Rs 1,298.40 a tonne linked to a sugar recovery of 9.5 per cent and an incentive of Rs 12.70 for every 0.1 per cent higher recovery.

While amending the Essential Commodities Act and the Sugarcane Control Order to replace the Statutory Minimum Price (SMP) with the FRP, the Centre also said that if a State Government announced a higher price over the FRP, it would have to bear the additional cost and pay the farmers directly.

This replaced the existing system of the Centre announcing a SMP for sugarcane, which was usually followed with the State Government announcing a higher SAP.

Before announcing the FRP for the 2009-10 (October-September) sugar season, the Centre had announced an SMP of Rs 1,077.60 a tonne linked to a sugar recovery of 9.5 per cent and an incentive of Rs 11.30.

The Tamil Nadu Government after consulting with farmers and sugar mill representatives had announced an additional price (SAP) of Rs 359.80 taking the total sugarcane price to Rs 1,437.40, apart from incentive and sugarcane transport costs, the Minister said.

The SAP had been announced before the Centre amended the laws to provide for FRP.

Therefore the private sector and cooperative and public sector mills in the State would go by the SAP, the Minister announced.

More Stories on : Sugar | Agricultural Policy | Politics | Tamil Nadu

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